Through the Never
by G Halsey
Summary: Part one of a self-titled series. Agent Forrest finds himself lost in a dangerous new world and only one place in the universe can offer him salvation.
1. Prologue

Here's my first ever attempt at a fic, having had the idea for quite a while now. This story will be part one of three.

Of course, I do not own Stargate Atlantis or any other part of the Stargate franchise.

'Through the Never'

Prologue

AGENT FORREST HAD spent much of his professional life preparing for things, learning to cover every single contingency, action and reaction. This could be described as a _lot _of training and experience.

Amongst his experiences were aerial operations, maritime operations, land operations and of course space operations. All of these were second nature to Forrest, as were most aspects of the military spectrum. Many a commanding officer were quick to praise Forrest's intelligence and ability to adapt to new situations- though he was not the fittest, toughest nor strongest soldier on the field, his superb combat and tactical prowess rarely failed to please his superiors.

Forrest's adaptability could only go so far, however. Sometimes the change in environments is almost instant. Literally.


	2. Chapter 1 'Arrival'

Chapter One 'Arrival'

'Whoooaahh…Shiiiit!'

These were all the words he could muster as a stomach-wrenching terror overcame him, as he found himself in a completely absurd situation. His brain caught up with the eyes and realised that he was in fact hurtling through the atmosphere. The force of the thin air clawed at his skin while he tried to orient himself to look at the sky. When he did, his fears were confirmed: up was space, down were clouds and most likely the solid, unforgiving ground.

Lifting his right arm into view, he brought up a diagnostic screen on his arm-computer and saw a haze of red, orange and blue lines and figures as the approaching-200mph wind interfered with the holographic display. Although much was completely illegible, Forrest could see that a massive energy burst had caused a powerful anomaly which seemed to have occurred a few hundred meters above him.

Now, though, was not the time for statistical analysis. His ship was nowhere to be seen, so the only explanation he could come up with was that he was flying through the atmosphere of the planet that he was orbiting only moments ago. Soon after this realisation, his problems began to mount. This high up, the air was very thin, so breathing was quite difficult. He thus shifted his body to one side and pointed his head straight down and his legs towards the sky.

Immediately, his speed began to increase, along with the pain of the air hitting his face at such high speeds. The noise and violence of motion was incredible, it was hard even to think at this point. It was never like this in those aerial ops- at least he was given a damned helmet. He had been through worse, so he just closed his eyes and tried his best to endure it. He knew it wouldn't last for long. After about two minutes, the air started to thicken up. He again shifted his weight to one side and aimed at the ground back-first. His speed lessened; the pain decreased.

After about a minute in relative 'comfort', he began to ponder his life, in what little time he had left. He wondered how death would come. Would he smack head-first into a rock? Be impaled on one of the steel antennae of a relay outpost? Fall through one of the hundred glass windows of a fancy, brand new hotel? It was difficult to ascertain, and just to check he tilted his head to the side to get a view of the ground.

Or rather sea! He felt a slight sensation of joy when he noticed the big puddle of blue beneath him. What was even better was the land nearby, which meant that if he were to survive the crash, he might be able to swim to shore. So: he must survive the crash. Normally, a man would not withstand falling into water at such high speeds, and then be able to swim to the surface.

Naturally however, Forrest was no ordinary man. Being the Agency's finest, he was issued a magical assortment of technology that most men could barely dream about having. With a bit of tweaking here and a dash of timing there, surviving the crash should not be a problem.

The sea was not far off now. He reckoned thirty, maybe forty seconds until impact. He brought up the holographic arm display and told (well, '_thought'_) his device to project a shield around his body the moment he hit the water. The shield was to extend a bubble around his head whilst he was underwater. Yes; this device is pretty cool.

Shifting his weight again, he lay flat facing the sea and spread his cloak out to reduce his velocity as much as possible. _Now- tuck, roll and dive…_

Forrest hit the water legs-first. The shield worked perfectly, glowing green as it absorbed the kinetic energy of the impact. He shot down below the surface, holding his breath as not to tax the oxygen he had left in the bubble his energy shield was projecting around his head. With decent technique he forced his arms towards his body and swam hard to the surface; his heavy combat trousers tugged back at him, almost as if they wanted him to fail and retreat to the murky depths.

Upon reaching the surface, having used up his supply of air in his bubble-shield, he scanned the area for the land he saw from the air. His heart sank as he came to grips with the fact that he had underestimated the distance to the land from his position. It was at least 15 miles away. He knew, there was no way that he could swim that far with his heavy gear. He could ditch it, but that idea was very unappealing; this gear was not only expensive but useful in all situations, especially absurd survival ones such as this. His micro-fusion battery was reading 70% and falling-the shield was still on. Not liking the idea of getting wet, he pointed his arm at the nearest shore, and with a burst of light re-materialized on a sandy beach.


	3. Chapter 2 'Lost'

Chapter Two 'Lost'

THE WET SAND gave way easily to the weight of Forrest's boots, leaving deep imprints as he trudged up the beach. He gazed at the vast scrubland plains that were stretched out before him, both in awe at their beauty and in dread of their meaning- He was a long way from anyone, or anything. To the north of the scrubland was what looked like a forest. To the far east of the scrubland was the start of a large mountain range, complete with black rock and white, snow-capped peaks. Forrest decided that procession was the only way, towards the forest to the north, which hopefully would be near a settlement.

Hold on.

This planet _was_ a settlement. It had been a sprawling colony for one hundred years! Aside from being an important military base, there were cities, satellites, space docks and massive communication spires. Forrest did not know exactly the geography of the area, so would not know immediately where he was: perhaps he was in a rural, unpopulated area. He tried the comms.

'_Epsilon this is agent Forrest, over_.

_Epsilon Eridani__, this is agent Forrest, authorisation code two four six seven tree niner Zulu tango Zulu, over._

Argh, bollocks. Come on, come on, come on-'

He switched to the planet-wide military frequency.

'_Alpha Charlie, Alpha Charlie, this is agent Forrest, radio check radio check over_'

There was no reply, so he checked the diagnostic screen of his arm device. He was reading no activity in the EM spectrum. No microwave communications. A bit of checking through the data revealed no energy signals at all, no matter how small and this was very, very worrying. Either all of his equipment was broken, or all the electronic systems in and around the planet were down.

Forrest considered these possibilities for a while, and concluded that they were highly improbable. Yes, his kit and just been plunged at high speed into the ocean, but it had been built to far higher stress tolerances than that. Yes, the powerful energy burst may have done some damage, but his arm device had been working flawlessly so far. As for all the planetary communications going down all at once? Not possible, unless someone got physical access to all mainframes at once and surpassed the AIs controlling them and _that_ had never happened in as long as Forrest, or his parents, or his grandparents, could remember.

He didn't know what to do. He contemplated moving forward, heading towards the forest in hope that he might find some form of civilization, but he was still in partial shock from his fifty-thousand foot freefall, so he slumped himself down by the nearest bush and carefully touched his face. He was rewarded with a jolt of stinging pain- his face was covered with small frost burns and even flinching, designed to _lessen_ the pain, hurt. It wasn't all bad, though. He appreciated the climate of the planet; it was more or less the same as he remembered it- cool, but with a continuous warm breeze that flowed over the entire scrubland.

The planet, which Forrest was pretty sure was called Ladonea, was rather unique in terms of weather: the central landmass was surrounded by four sub-continents, which created a sort of four-way gulf stream, keeping the landmass a please temperate climate for many of its seasons. The more comfortable he became lying by this bush, the more that important question begged on his mind- how on earth, or frankly all the blessed Milky Way planets, did he get here?

It was a difficult question, but the more time passed, the more obvious it became. Clearly the Parallel-universe Jump Drive on the Epsilon Eridani had malfunctioned, sending Forrest merrily on his way to another universe. What was more interesting was that this planet seemed undeveloped, almost as if the Tau'ri had never colonised it. Perhaps in this universe they hadn't? Perhaps there were never any humans on this planet at all? Maybe all here had been destroyed? What if, somehow, he had travelled back in time? That prospect was the most disturbing, but also the most unlikely. This would mean that he would have had to travel to both a different time and a different universe simultaneously and PJDs were never designed to function that way.

Realising that these questions were never going to answer themselves, Forrest slowly rose up and began his trek north, to the forest.

Oooo0000000ooooooo0000000oooooo00000

'_My name is agent James Forrest, United Tau'ri Space Command serial number zero zero four eight six one one two tree seven niner, authorisation code two four six seven tree niner zulu tango zulu'_

Forrest was impressed that he managed to fit in all that in one breath.

'_According to me, it is 11:38pm on the fourth of October, although that is of no indication as to what time it actually is relative to this planet. It has been exactly 7 hours and 12 minutes since I fell victim to what I believe to have been a catastrophic failure of the Parallel Jump Drive onboard th__e UTSC vessel I was serving on, the Epsilon Eridani. I appear to be near the eastern coast of the planet Ladonea. I have made my way approximately one-four kilometres inland, and am now in the forest north of the eastern shore. I will rest here for the night and then proceed farther inland towards roughly where I believe the Stargate is located. I hope this log will provide some information useful to whoever may find it, which may be assisting in any sort of rescue. Forrest out.'_

'_Forrest's log, it's, erm, day four. I've moved approximately eight-zero kilometres from my last entry, which was day one I believe. I have long since cleared the forest and am in more sparse woodland, mostly populated with rhododendron-like bushes and some trees that look a little like birch.I've followed a major river that seems to lead in the direction of the gate. The local cuisine mostly consists of small weasel-like creatures which are easy enough to catch and are quite delicious when slow-roasted. My current plan of action is to keep following this river west. Maybe it'll lead to some sort of civilisation, or better the gate itself.'_

'_Day six. The woodland has long since passed but I am still near the river, which fortunately is still en route to the Stargate. It has decreased in size now. I think this area is a granite rock area, due to the absence of advanced plant life and the flooding that the river affords. I'm keeping log entries down to three per day, in order to conserve battery power. Currently the main battery reads 54% and I expect it to last at least another week, whilst supplying good power to my combat trousers. I've attempted to use fire and sunlight to charge the battery, but these don't give enough power to be useful._

'_Day, um, nine. I've more or less given up hope on rescue anytime soon. The river's ended, leaving nothing but more woodland between me and the gate. There's some kinda small mountain range to the north-west and that's basically all I can see. I've packed up what food I can in to this 'weasel-skin' bag here, and am gonna carve an arrow into this tree. I hope y'all can see this. Forrest out.'_


	4. Chapter 3 'Contact'

Chapter Three 'Contact'

THE MORNING OF day ten was especially cold. Without much warm gear, Forrest felt the bitterness all the more profoundly, and although he tried to snuggle up in pile of leaves and earth he called a bed, it really did not offer enough comfort.

Droplets of water crested his eyebrows and moisture had settled all over his face, as result of the heavy morning dew. Groggily-eyed he rose, leaning on the soggy bark of a tree to gain his balance as his eyes adjusted to the new day's light. Moss had frost highlighting their edges, as did the leaves of the trees, whilst soft, yellow shafts of light beamed down through the tree canopy. It was a beautiful place; he made a mental note to use that vacation leave he was due and visit this world when, or if, he ever got home.

The sun was high in the sky by the time Forrest was well into the woods; his battery was at a decent 28% thanks to some clever economising. It was then that Forrest heard the most welcoming sound he had heard in a long, long time: _BOOM. _

A series of faint booms and bangs originated in front of him, clearly some distance away. It was no thunder- there were no clouds visible anyway, so Forrest could only conclude that it was produced by artificial means- and booms were only generally made by civilisations that had at least _some_ form of technological development. Without hesitation he headed in that direction, wary that those continuous explosions either indicated an incredibly un-boring harvest festival or that a war was going on.

He had barely covered one hundred and fifty metres when he heard voices and shouts to his right; he immediately took cover behind a tree stump and directed his view towards the voices. Coming from ahead, he saw a large group of people dressed in primitive clothing hastily moving towards his right, almost as if they were fleeing from the noise. The nature of their shouting and rushed movement conveyed fear- Forrest began to realise that the civilisation up ahead was not going to be welcoming.

Moving out of cover, Forrest stayed low to the ground and moved briskly towards the mass of people, hoping not to be seen as to scare them away. In this he succeeded: emerging from the treeline, he approached the leaders of the fleeing people.

'Excuse me! Hey, you there!' he shouted.

Many faces turned towards him with confused looks until an elderly woman spoke,

'What in the name of the Ancestors are you doing out here stranger, alone?'

The woman paused and walked towards Forrest, struggling to move through the river of bodies that were rushing around her.

'Hurry, child, we must get to the caves. All of us here are fleeing, there is no time-'

'Time for what?' Forrest cut her short.

'The Wraith of course, they are culling the village as we speak! Quickly, they are almost upon us, we hope to find refuge in the caves not far from here.' The old woman had difficulty raising her voice above the continuous cries of 'move!', 'hurry! This way' and 'come on!'.

'The Wraith?' Forrest spoke, 'who the hell are they?'

A startled expression appeared on the woman's face-

'You've never heard of the Wraith? I apologise, but I have never met anyone who has not suffered at the hands of them.'

She seemed genuinely surprised, then said,

'Look child, I wish I could share in your ignorance, but there is no time. Come with us to the caves and I will explain all.'

Oooooo0000000oooooo000000oooooo000000oooooo0000

Loud, screeching wails resounded above the tree canopy, which agitated and scared the locals even more, even though they had all retreated to the innards of the caves. Forrest was at the mouth of the cave, squatting and leaning behind a rock. He was joined by the old woman and two other, younger, men.

'I make it seventy-two. Is that everyone?' Forrest asked.

'Yes, it should be. I must offer thanks for your assistance, we have never experienced acts of such kindness from outsiders before. Please, meet my sons, Odin and Marcus.'

Forrest smiled and raised his hand, but did not stir from his rock.

'Pleasure to meet you. Now-' he redirected his gaze towards the woman.

'Tell me about these Wraith.'

The old woman proceeded to tell him that they awake to feed every few hundred years or so and that they come in great ships. Suddenly, Forrest was transported back to high school- he recalled learning about a species of alien that fed on the life-force of their victim and played a pivotal role in the demise of the Alterans. Forrest interrupted again as the woman was speaking.

'Hold on. Are these the guys that come in big spaceships and collect humans from villages, so that they can feed on them by sucking the life out of them?'

'Yes, you are quite correct Mr. Forrest.'

She sighed, before continuing to explain their situation.

'Four of their ships came through the portal and started attacking our village and taking people. We had no idea that they were coming, it has not been that long since the last culling. I fear, I fear that we here are the only ones who may survive.'

As she spoke, she noticed that Forrest looked increasingly concerned, and began rubbing his eyeballs with his right fingers.

'Is something wrong?'

'You could say that.' Forrest replied.

'I guess you've just confirmed where I am and how I got here. Its ok though, no need to worry.'

The elderly woman, called Lenova, was just about to ask where exactly Forrest was from when Marcus noticed movement up ahead.

'I see movement' he whispered. His expression dropped like a stone.

'The Wraith are _here_. I make five of them, heading straight for us.'

Lenova and Odin immediately crouched down and got behind cover. They all simultaneously looked at Forrest, as if expecting answers; meanwhile Forrest's strategic cogs were turning fast. He came up with two options:

Wait until they get close and shoot them.

Wait until they get close and stun them.

'Marcus,' Forrest spoke softly.

'Yes' came the reply.

'If I were to kill these Wraith, what are the chances that more of them will come and hunt us down?'

'Um, high, I mean quite high, yes.'

It did not take a Special Forces veteran to realise that these people were terrified, and the Wraith were almost upon them.

'Stay down' was Forrest's only command, as he drew a pistol from his right-leg holster. Blue pulses of light lanced out at the approaching soldiers as Forrest fired his weapon four times in quick succession, which attracted more blue pulses in his direction as the enemy fired their weapons. The energy blasts dissipated off the rocks and impacted against the walls of the cave, but failed to hit their mark as Forrest was already swat-rolling across the cave entrance. As he reached the other side, he drew a second weapon and began to fire both of them with deadly precision. One of the enemy blasts struck Forrest's chest, but was effortlessly absorbed by his energy shield. Before he could be hit again, the firing stopped. Lenova cautiously peeked her head over her rock, staring in disbelief at the pile of Wraith lying on the ground. She spoke, her voice still trembling with fear.

'Are… are they dead?'

'No, they're just stunned; I thought it would be best to do it this way. You two, get over here.'

Forrest signalled to Marcus and Odin. His voice still retained steady calmness, despite what had just happened. To these peasant farmers, he seemed a formidable warrior.

Forrest leant down and picked up the enemy weapons, then handed them to Lenova.

'Here. Take these and give 'em to the most able men you have. You'll need them if my plan goes badly.'

Marcus was confused, so asked Forrest what was on his mind.

'What precisely is your plan Mr. Forrest? What is there to do with a pile of _not_ dead Wraith?'

'I'll explain later. Right now I need you to go and get one more man. We're going to shift our Wraith pals here a short distance, erm, that way.'

Forrest pointed to a small clearing very close to the cave. Within moments, another middle-aged man came running out to meet them.

'You three, take one guy each. We're gonna drag them across the ground to that clearing over there.'

Forrest was quick to issue orders. He looked at each of the men, then sternly said,

'Listen. It is imperative that you follow my orders if you wish to live, OK? Everyone, raise your hand if you want to live.'

The three men looked at each other, each of them quite baffled. Forrest's facial expressions told them that he wanted an answer. With slight hesitation, each man slowly raised his hand. Forrest turned away and faced their objective, grabbing two Wraith by the collar.

'Righto. Follow me.'

When they arrived at the clearing, Forrest told the men to prop the Wraith up in a circle, so to portray the Wraith as conscious and standing up. He told the men to stand behind them, making up the centre part of the circle. They followed without question- Forrest's quite confidence clearly marked himself out as the expert in such matters.

'I can't get this thing to work,' Forrest informed the others. He did not wait for them to ask what exactly the 'thing' was and what he was trying to do with it.

'This device on the Wraiths' arm, it must be used to signal the ship, but unfortunately I can't read ancient alien dialects, so we're gonna wait here and hope that the ship picks us up anyway.'

The three men nodded in unison, although holding these soldiers up was a strenuous task and Forrest could see that the men, especially Odin, were struggling. Thankfully, they would not have to struggle much longer. A screeching wail overhead beckoned the coming of the Wraith ship.

'Not long now, lads. I need you to stay calm and don't move. Hopefully, this'll work.'

Forrest saw a small, pointy plane flying towards them, then a glistening purple ray fire down from the belly of the vessel. Forrest held his arm over the men before activating his shield, which projected over the men but avoided the Wraith. He activated it just before the culling beam hit their group. Forrest crossed his fingers and closed his eyes, praying to whatever gods these people believed in that his shield would protect them.

Sure enough, the beam scooped up the Wraith but dissipated onto the shield-within quite literally a flash, the Wraith were gone, as was the ship.

'What..wha-'

'Don't speak. Or move.'

Forrest's words were clear. He still had the shield activated. Seconds ticked by, each one draining a little more from Forrest's battery reserve. 22%. 21%. 20%. 19%. 18%. Nearly a minute passed before Forrest deactivated the shield, and then sat down on the soft earth. The other men did the same, but they were shocked, nearly out of breath, however Odin managed to collect himself enough to speak.

'Impossible… was that your trickery Mr Forrest?'

'Yep. Good job I remembered my history and that Wraith use teleportation beams to get their prey. What you saw was an energy shield which I projected around us, but not the Wraith. It stopped us from being transported up to the ship. Plus, I held it on after so as to blind us from the ship's sensors.'

Forrest spoke slowly, hoping that his explanation would satisfy the men. He noticed that the explosions and the aircraft noise had gone, which could only mean good things. The third man, Cilla, was next to cobble together some words.

'I have never heard of the Wraith being defeated before, not least by one man alone. I'm sure the others will be very happy indeed.'

Back at the caves, Lenova was, naturally, delighted with the news.

'Mr Forrest,' she spoke as she approached him.

'Please, call me James.' Forrest replied with a smile on his face. He truly was glad that he managed to save at least some of these people.

'Very well then, James. On behalf of everyone in Ladonea, you have our sincerest thanks. You are like a gift from the gods, and we owe you a debt of gratitude.'

Hmmm, a gift from the gods. Forrest liked the sound of that, after all he did fall from the heavens.

'Is there anything we can do for you?' Lenova asked politely.

'You know, now that you mention it, there is. Take me to this 'portal' of yours.'

00000000ooooooooo000000000oooooo00000oooo00000o

And just like that, Forrest has his own slice of Wraith pie. I hope you're enjoying this, there's a fair bit more to come. Oh yes: do review!! Please ! :)


	5. Chapter 4 'Atlantis'

Chapter Four 'Atlantis'

'Can we see your weapons?'

'_No.'_

'Please?'

'_Negatory.'_

'Awww, you're mean. Pleeease…'

'_No!'_

'Why not?'

Forrest stopped walking, turned around and bent over to face the two tiny terrors that were attempting to interrogate him. Of all the creatures in the universe, children were the one thing that Forrest probably had the most disdain for.

'OK. I'm gonna say this once, and once only. You can't see my guns because they are very dangerous and are liable to blow your tiny prepubescent heads off if you're not very, very careful. I'm sure your parents wouldn't be too happy if they found their kids brainless now, would they?'

Forrest put on the most condescending voice he could, hoping that this was enough to scare away the two annoyances. It failed.

'Well at least tell us about them…' said the shorter of the two, a brown-haired boy.

Forrest simply close his eyes and dropped his head in despair. He really didn't want to deal with this right now, so he just turned around and walked on. He then considered blasting the kids with technobabble in order to send them on their merry way.

'These pistols were custom-forged by master armourer Tokisho Murase on the planet Rhea and fire phasic plasma pulses at a rate of four hundred rounds per minute, are fed by a rechargeable energy cell which is good for about sixty rounds, feature a holographic targeting display and can also function as a stun weapon should the situation arise.

May I warn you children, such a situation will develop here _real_ soon if you ask any more questions.'

There was silence.

'Mother says its bad manners to speak to people like that' said the boy, who was struggling to keep up with Forrest's ever increasing stride length.

'Well then, she's obviously raised you well. But tell me, did she ever teach you how to realise when you're annoying someone?'

Forrest was now walking noticeably fast and the kids were practically running now to try and keep up with him. Eventually, he came to a stop.

'There you have it kids, the first familiar face I've seen in days. If the gods are on my side, and if the lovely people in your village are anything to go by, they are, I might be going home today.'

'Through the portal?' muttered the taller black-haired boy.

'Through the Stargate, yes.'

'It's _called_ a portal.'

'No, it's _called _a Stargate. That's what the people who built it called it.'

'But nobody knows _that_…'

Forrest didn't bother justifying that with a response. Rather, he took out a single glove from his coat pocket and slipped it onto his left hand. He approached the DHD and proceeded to dial address of the main UTSC military planet in the Pegasus galaxy; quickly the gate buzzed into life and soon enough the 'kawoosh' was heard as the wormhole began to stabilize.

Approaching the gate, Forrest activated the tiny video camera embedded in the glove and brought up the display on his arm-device. Sticking his arm through the event horizon, he was greeted by images of a barren, desolate wasteland with no plant or animal life to speak of, never mind a sprawling military base. His feeling of disappointment soon turned into one of stupidity as he realised that the planet was one of the first to have been terraformed, back where he came from.

What he did know, however, that if he had been transported back in time, there was at least one place occupied by the Tau'ri in this galaxy. He walked back to the DHD, leaving the gate to deactivate. Naturally, the kids were there to grill him some more.

'How come you opened the portal, but you didn't go through?'

'Were you scared? That would be _so_ funny if he was scared!'

'Are you two _still _here? You must find me really interesting or would have buggered off a long time ago, which precisely what I would have done if I was as young and half as restless as you are.'

'Oh we forgot to tell you; Lenova sent us to watch you leave because she's in some boring meeting and can't come'.

This all made much more sense to Forrest. Pressing the cold metallic keys of the DHD into place, he confronted the tiny terrors for the last time.

'Listen kids, I'm flattered by your company, but I'm about to make an important phone call and you have gotta stay quiet, ok?'

'Fine.' The kids whined, in unison. Forrest pressed the big red button.

'Atlantis this is agent Forrest, come in over.'

There was no reply.

'Atlantis, this is agent Forrest, do you read over?'

Forrest crosses his fingers. If they didn't respond, he was well and truly stranded.

'_Agent Forrest, this is Atlantis, we read you loud and clear over.'_

At last. Forrest breathed a sigh of sweet relief.

'Atlantis, it is real good to hear your voice. I have one question to you though before you can start asking all of yours: are you under the control of the United Tau'ri Space Command?

'_Uh, that's a negative agent Forrest, we've never heard of anything like that before. Now, do you mind telling us just who you are and how you got this address?'_

'Fair enough, Atlantis. I have good reason to believe that I've somehow travelled back in time several hundred years and have ended up in your present day, which of course means that I know absolutely nobody and am lost, to say the least.'

'_Ok… that's all very interesting Mr Forrest, but I'm afraid I can't just let you waltz into my base.'_

A different voice spoke through the radio this time. Forrest then pointed his finger at his face and started to transmit video.

'I'm transmitting video now, Atlantis'.

After a short delay, Forrest could see a bald, bespectacled man staring back at him through the arm display.

'Listen guys, all you need to know is that I'm a human from Earth. Hell, I've even worked in Atlantis before, but I understand completely why you won't allow me in your city, so how about you send me the coordinates of a suitable meeting place. We can further discuss things from there.'

The bald man scratched his chin, then nodded.

'_Earth you say...very well. We're sending the address now.'_

'Good, but give me five minutes to wipe the address memory from the DHD. Forrest out.'

As soon as the Stargate deactivated, Forrest lay down and got to work on the DHD. He braced himself for the impending quiz assault from the boys, but it never came. Most likely they found someone else to annoy, Forrest thought. Within minutes of fiddling with the tiny control crystals of the DHD, he had attracted quite a crowd- it was almost as if these people had never seen someone take apart a DHD before. The show did not last for long however, as Forrest was soon finished. Without hesitation he dialled the address of the new planet, and after bidding farewell to the locals, stepped through the event horizon.

Oooo00000ooooooo00000ooooo00000ooooooo000000oooo0

HE WAS GREETED by four burly men pointing rather old-fashioned guns at him. Forrest cautiously put his hands up in the air and adopted a curious look on his face.

'Whoa there lads… doesn't it say somewhere that you shouldn't point guns at people?'

The reply came from one who seemed to be the leader of the group.

'Yeah, but not unless you plan on shooting that person…'

'I see.' Forrest smiled wryly.

'I'm Major Lorne; this is Lieutenant Stone, Sergeant Davies and Staff Sergeant Stackhouse.'

Lorne saw the stranger make a sort of half-wave to his men, which actually made him trust this Forrest guy a little more. His sense of humour had a definite Earth ring to it, so this was precisely where Lorne lead the conversation.

'So, I hear you're from Earth. You wanna tell us where exactly?'

'Sounds British to me, sir.' said the Lieutenant. Both men were expecting a reply.

'Am I right?' continued Stone, so now it was Forrest's turn to speak.

'Ok, I may have slightly lied about that, but I _was_ born on the planet Rhea, which incidentally is right around the corner from Earth- and I've been there a lot, let's see, I don't know, countless times. New York, London, Washington, LA, Mombasa, Paris, take your pick.'

Forrest wondered how much more he would have to say to make these people believe him. The next of Lorne's questions was inevitable.

'Alright… lemme get this straight. You're from a planet in the Milky Way, you travelled back in time hundreds of years and ended up here- in Pegasus- and you claim to have 'worked in Atlantis'. Please forgive me if this all seems a little odd.'

'I never said it wasn't.' replied Forrest. 'In fact, I'm having a little difficulty coming to terms with the fact that I'll probably never see my friends, family, or bloody well anyone I know ever again.'

Lorne could hear the anger escalating in Forrest's voice. Though he probably couldn't understand what Forrest must have been going through, he wasn't about to let his guard down. Forrest then proceeded to take a few steps towards Lorne, oblivious to the marines aiming their weapons at him, until he was looking him straight in the eye.

'If you have any more questions, major, perhaps you can ask them when you're ready to trust me at least enough to _lower_ your guns.'

Lorne had to crane his neck to meet Forrest's gaze; the stranger must easily have been half a foot taller. He was not in the mood to take any more shit from this man, but saw no harm in redirecting their firepower. Without loosing eye contact, he ordered his men to lower their weapons, and upon doing so Forrest spoke again.

'Good. Now, I suppose you'll wanna know how I ended up in the ugliest period of frankly a dump of a galaxy.' Forrest's tone immediately lifted, whilst Stone silently chuckled. To him, truer words were never spoke. Forrest propped himself up against the DHD and awaited Lorne's questions.

'Just so you know, I need you to tell us everything and that includes what you were doing prior to your, um, 'accident'.'

'No worries. Let's see: I was aboard the Eridani, the ship I was serving on at the time and we were in orbit above this very planet.'

'Is that a military ship?' asked Lorne, cutting Forrest short.

'Aye, the first in line of the Epsilon Eridani-class battleships, our biggest and most advanced warships to date. As I was saying, we were in orbit for a routine resupply and maintenance while I was making my way down to my quarters after breakfast. On the way I stopped by one of the engineering decks to say hi to a friend, erm, then as I left, I think I heard the PJD come online.'

'PJD?' Lorne looked understandably puzzled.

'Parallel Jump Drive- It's a device that allows smooth transition between alternate realities. We had one on our ship because, well, that's what we do.'

Lorne still looked confused, and Forrest sighed.

'I'm part of a crew who travels across realities, partly to gather intelligence about upcoming events and partly to assist other realities who aren't so fortunate, mainly ones where Earth never had a Stargate program. I'm guessing that a, um, malfunction in the drive got me here. The next thing I knew I was falling, high up, through the atmosphere.'

Lorne looked even more confused and was struggling to put any of this information into context. Either this guy was telling the truth or he was one hell of a story-teller.

'Hold… hold on a sec. You travel across universes helping people, yet you're somehow able to help, um, versions of Earth that never had Stargate programmes.'

'That about sums it up.'

'Now I don't know much about physics, but I do know that if our Earth never had a Stargate programme, we would have easily been destroyed by now.'

'Oh, you're exactly right. That's why the Eridani can travel through time as well.'

The confused look on Lorne's face disappeared, but immediately he dropped his head down and scratched his eyebrows. Something was obviously on his mind.

'You know, we've encountered something similar to this before, about a year and a half ago.'

'Oh really?' Forrest was a little surprised.

'Mmm. We detected a ship of ours, the Daedalus, above Atlantis yet saw no hyperspace windows or anything. Damn thing just appeared out of nowhere. Turns out it was fitted with one of these alternate reality drives, except it didn't work and ended up jumping randomly through realities. We almost lost our flagship team that day.'

'Wow. I had no idea that the technology had been developed such a long time ago. Well, I guess every day is a school day.'

Forrest knew he was making some headway, as the conversation gradually turned into a two-way one. Lorne explained to him how far back in time he actually was, to which Forrest was partly happy about as had he turned up only a few years before, things would have been much, much worse. Soon, the topic of whether or not Forrest would be allowed in Atlantis was brought up, which to Forrest was a make-or-break deal. Lorne granted his request, provided that Forrest handed over his weapons.

Forrest was a little hesitant at first, but quickly realised that he was in no real danger of being horribly betrayed by the expedition members. After handing over his pistols, Lorne asked about another item attached to Forrests' heavily armoured trousers.

'What about that thing there?' Lorne asked as he handed the pistols to Stackhouse. He was pointing at an ornately decorated silver rod attached securely onto what looked like a belt.

'Oh, this little thing? A gift from my uncle, one of my favourite toys. Have a look.'

Forrest activated the device and two brilliantly polished and equally ornate blades shot out from both ends of the rod. Each blade was asymmetrical and had protruding smaller blades, almost like leaves, that flowed out of the central shaft. Indeed, the blade was decorated with a beautifully etched flower branch; the stem following through the middle of the blade, with the leaves carved into the flowing edges that sprang out from the stem. Lorne actually jumped backwards a bit when the device was activated, but now was busy admiring the engraving.

'Nice, ain't it. It also does this-'

Without delay, a glowing yellow energy field fired out from the handgrip and surrounded the edges of the blade. Baleful energies flickered and moved round all over the metal, charging the air with static and making the hair on the back of all the men's necks stand on end. It was a mesmerising sight.

'Don't get too drawn in, major. I've ended up looking at the thing for days, and besides,'

Forrest turned off the sword and retracted the blades. He tossed it to Lorne.

'We have places to go, people to see. Now, I assume you have some sort of cloaked ship eyeing us?'


	6. Chapter 5 'FNG'

Chapter 5 'FNG'

UPON STEPPING THROUGH the shimmering circle, Forrest took in the familiar yet not so familiar surroundings of Atlantis' gateroom. Although it had been a few years since he was last here, there were many differences between his Atlantis and this one. Gone were the biometric and dangerous substance scanners that lined the walkway towards the stairs, gone were the laser defence turrets on the ceiling and gone were the combat-armoured marines guarding the doorways. This Atlantis was much less crowded, much more spartan in appearance.

As Forrest was thinking all of this, Lorne and his men moved up to his flanks and escorted him towards a group of people near the staircase. The bald, bespectacled man whom Forrest had communicated with was there along with two other men, a brown-haired woman and a large fellow with a clearly impractical hairdo. The bald man was first to speak.

'Mr Forrest I presume, I'm Richard Woolsey, leader of this facility. This here is Lieutenant-Colonel John Sheppard, Dr Rodney McKay, Teyla Emmagen and Ronon Dex.'

Forrest greeted all of them with a firm handshake.

'…and I'm sure you've become firm friends with Major Lorne and his team already.'

'Oh yes, it was quite the uh…'

Forrest glanced round at Lorne. He didn't quite know what to say next.

'soiree.'

Sheppard let a smile creep through his lips, while the rest of the team looked blankly upon their new guest. Woolsey resumed, finding Forrest's humour a little reminiscent of a certain important Air Force general.

'Indeed. Well, if you don't mind, Colonel Sheppard will be giving you a brief tour of the base before escorting you to your quarters. I then would appreciate it if you'd meet me in the conference room in one hour.'

Woolsey gestured to Sheppard while the rest of the team dissipated back to their duties. McKay especially looked like he would rather be somewhere else, he obviously found the time-travelling newcomer about as interesting as the latest Yankees-Red Sox result.

'That's because it's not very interesting, I mean come on, what are the odds that he actually did travel back in time and found himself in an alternate reality all at the same time? He's probably just some wannabe Captain America who's thinks he's developed special powers or something, or any other nutjob of a similar calibre. I tell you, there are more important things in my life right now than meeting old Cap'n Crunch over there.'

McKay was pacing awfully quickly through the halls back to his lab. Teyla was in hot pursuit.

'Important things such as…' Teyla had almost a teasing look on her face. Rodney's expression soon turned red.

'Important, you know, um… sciency stuff. But anyways that's not the point.'

'The point is Rodney, I noticed some definite similarities between his mannerisms and those of other people from earth. From what he said-'

'He hardly said anything!' McKay retorted, as he cut the Athosian off.

'You and I both know that speech is not everything.'

'Yes, yes, of course. But that still doesn't prove he's telling the truth.'

Rodney and Teyla both paused where they stood, before Teyla spoke.

'I am sure John is determining that as we speak.'

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'So, this is the mess hall, where everyone, you know, eats. This pretty much how you remember it?' Sheppard asked, a hint of boredom in his tone. It was a little unfair that he, the 2IC of the whole base, was on chaperone duty.

'More or less. Of course ours was extended along that floor a long time ago to accommodate the increasing population, and we had matter converters instead of chefs.'

Forrest was clear and confident in his description of the 'other' mess hall and to Sheppard displayed no signs of deception. John still listened carefully to every word spoken by the stranger in the long black leather coat.

'Matter converters you say? It'd be cool to have some of those round here. Instant food, order almost anything you want…'

'You'd think that, but to be honest it's more of a problem than a luxury. Everyone just gets all their food beamed directly to their rooms or labs or whatnot, so hardly anyone actually socialises, at least not when I was there. Moving on?'

Forrest and Sheppard walked back out into the hall, the marine escort that Woolsey _insisted _would accompany them hot on their sixes. Forrest at last got the opportunity to ask some questions of his own.

'So Colonel, what kind of duties do you get up to around here?'

'I'm the military commander of the whole base, so that's a fair bit of responsibility already. I also go off-world quite a lot so to be honest I'm mostly busy fighting the Wraith, replicators, or whatever other enemies are constantly trying to kill us.'

'Yeah, those Wraith aren't the friendliest bunch.'

'You've heard of 'em?' Sheppard seemed pretty surprised by Forrest's revelation. He'd hoped that the Wraith would have been long gone by Forrest's time, and indeed they had.

'Mmm, I may have had a little run-in with them when I first met the locals on the planet. Nothing I couldn't handle though.'

Sheppard looked a little pissed about this new information.

'I assume you forgot to tell Major Lorne about this?'

'Again, I may have done. I did wipe the DHD memory, so no need to get your panties in a twist.'

Sheppard looked a little taken with this statement, not quite pissed. He waved his finger at Forrest.

'For your information, I haven't worn panties since twelfth grade and either way,'

He said,

'Woolsey is gonna need to hear about this.'

'You wore panties for the whole of twelfth grade?'

'No, I did-'

'Wow, I know _so many_ guys that did that.'

Forrest's teasing was so incessant and sarcastic that Sheppard swore that he must have had some relation to McKay. Without thinking of a comeback, Sheppard simply pointed out Forrest's quarters.

'Well here you are. I would say make yourself at home, but you're a little short on luggage, so…'

'No worries, this is just fine. I will need a power source, though.'

Forrest had is nearly-depleted battery in mind.

'We haven't installed our own plugs in this particular room yet, but all quarters have some sort of Ancient wireless power system. Only works with Ancient gadgets, mind.'

John soon caught sight of a holographic screen jump out of Forrest's arm, which was displaying all manners of different graph lines and data. 'Nice' seemed the most fitting things to say, then Forrest pulled back his sleeve, revealing a dark metallic device wrapped around his arm from the wrist past his elbow.

'You're right, I'm reading a low-frequency EM wave, although it's not powerful enough…'

John saw the holographic display flick through different images and writings, without any physical input from Forrest. It soon however dawned on Sheppard as to how Forrest controlled the device.

'Hmm. Do you think you could get some kind of signal or power booster in here? It would be _much _appreciated.'

Sheppard was not quite ready to give a stranger with unknown intentions a large power supply- that would be a little reckless. Still, it couldn't hurt to keep the man's hopes up.

'I'll see what I can do, but no promises. You've got your meeting with Woolsey about now by the way.'

Sheppard turned away to leave, but remembered to say something.

'Oh one more thing: McKay wants to take a look at your fancy gear, so leave it here and we'll have some people come get it.'

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McKay was the last in to the conference room, taking a seat beside Ronon. As usual, Woolsey sat at the head of the table, proceeding to order some sheets of paper.

'Dr McKay.'

The Canadian instantly sat up, Woolsey continued.

'Why don't you start us off by sharing what you've learned from Mr Forrest's equipment?'

'Well, we haven't been able to activate any of the devices so far, presumably because there's some sort of genetic lock on them, but we've scanned them and, much as I hate to admit it, there's definitely something there.'

'Care to elaborate on that?' asked John.

'We couldn't get his pistols to work due a genetic lock, as I said, but there are definite EM waves coming from them and the scans did reveal a lot of complex machinery and um, quite a significant power source.'

'So it's possible they do work.'

'Highly probable, yes.'

'What about his arm-computer-thing?' Woolsey interjected.

'Again, we couldn't turn it on but the scans did turn up some very sophisticated computer hardware alongside quite a lot of other, unidentifiable electronics.'

'Unidentifiable…' John said in a surprised, almost shocked way. Of course, he was teasing McKay. Needless to say, he did not get the joke.

'Oh ha ha ha. Look, Zelenka and I ran all the tests possible and besides-'

'Doctor!' Woolsey cut McKay off before he could finish his rant.

'The device.' Woolsey finished.

'Rodney. I was joking.' Sheppard admitted. McKay looked a little embarrassed.

'Oh. I knew that. Anyway, I haven't gotten to the best bit yet.'

McKay looked around at the expectant faces of Woolsey, Sheppard, Teyla, Ronon and Keller. He cleared his throat.

'The most interesting thing, about Captain Britannia over there's technology, is that some of it is Asgard based.'

Naturally, everyone at the twelve-foot mahogany table looked intrigued. John was next to talk.

'Really?' he said, this time genuinely surprised rather than 'best-way-to-annoy-McKay' surprised. This prompted Woolsey to raise some important questions.

'If this is true, and I'm sure you're right Doctor, it begs the question as to how he came by such technology. I guess what I'm trying to say is what is the possibility of him being involved with the renegade Asgard.'

'No. I don't think it's possible. You see, the Asgard we know and love had far superior technology to the Pegasus Asgard; the stuff I found in Forrest's device was equally if not more advanced than even the friendly Asgard could do. I guess it's possible that he could have improved the technology himself, but that would require some serious brains. He'd have to be um, you know, me. And even then,'

'That's fine, Doctor.' Woolsey interrupted again. It was time to move this briefing on. 'Dr Keller, what have you learnt from your medical exams?'

The whole room, especially Rodney, turned their gaze towards the cute blonde doctor. Rodney glanced around at the rest of the faces in the room before letting a small, but noticeable grin form on his mouth.

'To be honest sir, I don't even know where to begin. There are some _very_ strange things going on in that man's body.'

'Such as…'

'For starters, we found a host of unknown proteins in many of his tissues, changes and mutations to the base genetic coding of almost all his cells, and some significant changes in the structure of his muscle cells.'

'Anything else?' asked Woolsey. McKay was quick to reply.

'As if that's _not _enough?'

'Oh believe me; I'm not even close to the good bits yet. Scans of his chromosomes revealed a lot of anomalies in his telomeres, along with some unknown proteins and synthetic compounds.'

Keller leant forwards on the table before explaining the matter further. Taking a deep breath, she spoke.

'We know that when the chromosome divides during mitosis, it's pulled apart and the telomere acts as a buffer, to make sure the chromosome is basically pulled apart in the right way. Because of this, the telomere gets shorter as we age.'

Ronon and John looked a little confused. 'We do now,' remarked Sheppard.

'Anyways, the telomeres from his skin, muscle and eyes look normal for a man of twenty or so, but to be frank he has the internal organs of a forty-year-old.'

Keller's revelation was just as important as McKay's. McKay, looking more concerned than he usually did about non life-threatening topics, was next to talk.

'So how old is this man, exactly?'

'As I said, it's almost impossible to tell. He has the skin and bones of a young man, but his insides would suggest he's much older.'

Again, Woolsey asked the clever question. His legal experience and his extensive experience in Atlantis had made him pretty good at this.

'Is it possible he's a clone, I mean a similar sort of thing happed to Dr. Beckett's chromosomes did it not?'

'Well yeah, but his organs and his muscles would have had to have been taken from different stem cells, which would be impractical and unnecessarily difficult. Maybe he was grown from young stem cells, but even then all of his organs, including his brain, would have had to have been transplanted from a different cell culture.'

'Fair enough, Doctor.' Woolsey said, before scratching his eyebrows and sighing. Sheppard however had one more thing to say before Woolsey could conclude the briefing.

'What if he is forty years old, and his telomere things have been manipulated?'

'I don't know really, I mean theoretically that's not possible…'

'Well theoretically neither is teleportation, so…' McKay responded. To his annoyance, John finished his sentence.

'…so theories don't mean much in Pegasus.'

There was a brief period of hush as Woolsey finished taking down some notes, before speaking.

'I'll take all of this into consideration, but it seems that most of the evidence points to Forrest being truthful. So- what do we do with him?'

'Can't we just send him back?' said Ronon, his first words of the conference. Everyone promptly looked at McKay.

'Short answer, no.'

'We have encountered people from alternate realities before, could we not do what we did then?' were Teyla's first words of the meeting.

'Not this time, no. Normally our best option would be to do what the SGC did a few years ago and send a precise energy pulse through the Stargate, which would cause the gate to jump to a parallel universe, but that was only possible because they were able to detect that specific energy pattern on the gate in the first place.'

'But this time, we have no energy pattern to determine where he came from.' said Woolsey.

'Precisely. Also, jumping between alternate realities doesn't mean you can jump in time, so we'd still need a means of sending him forward in time. Now before John mentions solar flares, we have no idea how far a solar flare would send him, nor do we know how to predict them.'

Woolsey looked a little stumped. He wanted to believe Forrest, and wanted to send him home, but he appreciated just how impossible that might be.

'So there's no way for us to send him back.' He said to McKay.

'Well there is one way, but you're not gonna like it.'

All the faces in the room stared at him, again. Unusually, Ronon broke the silence.

'So what is it?'

'Oh, right. The only way to send him back would be to build both an alternate reality drive and a time machine. Which would be mind-numbingly hard to do, need I remind everyone.'

Sheppard looked understandably upset at this idea. He had vetoed McKay on such an idea before and hoped that the matter would not surface again.

'I don't in _any way _like this idea, but even if we were able to build this reality-drive thing, how the hell would we then find Forrest's reality?'

This time, McKay looked a little stumped, which was admittedly a rare occurrence.

'I have no idea. Our only hope would be to see if Forrest knew a way.'

Teyla was next to speak.

'Speaking of which, where is Mr Forrest now?'

Sheppard was quick to respond.

'Oh, we locked him in a room with Chuck and a giant stack of newspapers. Should keep him busy for the time being.'

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As always, reviews are nice. Very nice.


	7. Chapter 6 'Revelations'

Chapter 6 'Revelations'

SHEPPARD LEANED against the railings of Atlantis' control room, waiting for Woolsey to finish up with the scientist in his office. Sheppard did not know exactly why Woolsey had summoned him, but he could hazard a guess that it had something to do with their new guest. Shortly, the blonde female scientist left the office and Woolsey signalled Sheppard to come in, but Sheppard could not resist a quick smile at the girl. She smiled back but unfortunately before he could say a word Woolsey called to him, so on with the meeting it was.

'You probably know that I like to look at things using objective evidence and logic, and that personal feelings and opinions don't usually have the highest influence in my decisions.'

Sheppard took a seat on one of the large, comfy chairs.

'All for good reason.' He replied.

'Thank you. I brought you here because as a matter of fact, I want to hear your personal opinion on Mr Forrest. You've spent some time with him, so I imagine you've formed one by now.'

'Well,' said Sheppard,

'He's definitely got a sense of humour, unlike most other folks in this galaxy, so I guess that's either creepy or normal, depending on how you look at it. I also witnessed some of that technology McKay was talking about, which seemed pretty real to me. Not only that but he knows his way around our city rather well. Again; creepy or normal.'

'So you trust him?'

'I never said I _trusted _him, I mean he's sort of deceived us already.'

Woolsey got up from his chair, walked around his desk and sat on the table. As he did this, he spoke.

'You're referring to his encounter with the Wraith.'

'Yeah. Did he tell you what happened?'

'Yes, he did. He was helping some locals who were under attack from the Wraith get to some caves, then he dealt with a squad of Wraith soldiers that were headed for the cave he was in. He only stunned them so that he could fool the darts into thinking that Wraith squad were done finding survivors. The darts picked up their men, then left.'

'Was that all he told you?' Sheppard asked.

'He also said that he used his personal shield or something to resist the culling beams, as well as getting assistance from the locals.'

'I'm sure it seemed like a good idea at the time, but I'll bet good money that Forrest didn't think about what the Wraith will do when they realise they've been duped.'

'Or more likely what they've done already.' Replied Woolsey, in a tired tone. Both of them realised that Forrest didn't know the Wraith well enough to know that they would not stand for that sort of trick. The people of Ladonea were in grave danger.

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'I'm just saying, that of all the missions I've been on, and I've been on a lot, this has got to be by far the most fubar.'

McKay was in full rant-destroy mode, which to Sheppard was a target of extreme opportunity.

'More fubar than the time we took a bootleg jumper through hyperspace into the replicator homeworld?'

Ronon was next to join the hunt.

'More fubar than the time we got high on Wraith enzyme and raided a hive ship in a stolen dart?' he said with a grin on his face, having gotten well versed in Earth culture and phrases. With everyone now inside the jumper, McKay took shotgun and prepared his response.

'The difference between now and then is that back then we had a goal to achieve and the enemy weren't aware of us. Now, we're purposely walking into an area that's likely being bombarded from space as we speak. Now excuse me if that seems a little, ooh I dunno, FUBAR!'

The jumper was saturated with silence, but John knew how to break it.

'More fubar than the time we accidentally toked that Ancient superbong?'

McKay sighed.

'Ok, you got me on that one.'

'Good. I'm glad that's settled.'

Sheppard awaited the go-ahead for the mission, but was told that they would be off in a few minutes. This gave time for some more squad banter.

'Wheels-up in three minutes guys.'

'I for one am glad to have the chance to get off-world.'

Rodney and Ronon looked at Teyla. They both had a feeling that they knew why.

'Oh really? Why is that?' asked Rodney, nonetheless.

'It's Torren, I can barely keep him still, he is crawling so much. I suspect it won't be long now until he takes his first steps.'

'That's good for you, Teyla. So Rodney, what's the real reason why you didn't want to go on this op?'

Sheppard kept his head forward, conducting his jumper pre-flight.

'Wha… I told you. Imminent death from orbital spaceships.'

'Rodney…'

Sheppard didn't buy it.

'Fine. Jenny and I were about to watch the season finale of Doctor Who.'

'Ahh, is that what you kids are calling it these days. Equally good for you, Rodney.'

Ronon and Teyla both chuckled teasingly, whilst McKay tried his best not to blush. It failed, miserably.

'_Jumper one this is control, you are good to go over.'_

'_Copy that control.'_

'Alright kids, we're moving out.'

Sheppard opened the bay door; the jumper descended carefully into the gateroom and, without hesitation, sailed through the Stargate.

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As soon as the gate was cleared, Sheppard cloaked the jumper and headed skywards. Much to McKay's satisfaction, they had not flown into a death trap but had in fact missed the party altogether.

It was hardly a pretty sight, although by this time the team were fairly used to such things and had become a little jaded. Nonetheless, the gravity of the situation was not lost on anyone and even though the puddle jumper was at quite a high altitude, the destruction wrought upon Ladonea was obvious. The once-bustling network of cobbled streets, cottages and stables were nothing but charred, burning remains; black pillars of smoke rose from the ashes which served as a potent reminder of the Wraith's power. By now the team were in orbit, where Sheppard muttered the first words of the mission.

'Are there any lifesigns on the planet?'

'No' came the response from McKay.

'Jesus. Alright, I'm gonna set her down in the first village, see if we can gather some more intel.'

The jumper had touched down amid the remains of what looked like the town centre. A few wooden beams were still standing, the foundations of the buildings were clear, but the rest were reduced to blackened, burning rubble. The stench of burning flesh assaulted their nostrils and even Ronon, who was perhaps the most experienced with these situations, looked very uncomfortable. Some of the ground had been so intensely heated that it had turned to glass, which crumbled under the boots of the team members.

'Who did this?' asked Ronon, flatly.

'The residual energy is consistent with Wraith weapons fire.' Replied McKay, tapping away at his LSD.

'A hive ship?' Asked Teyla, looked perhaps the most disturbed.

Not only did she know first hand what the Wraith do to small villages that defy them, she had never come to one so soon after it had been destroyed. As she stepped through the soil and ash, she spotted a small gold amulet, complete with small scorch marks and scratches. She knelt down to pick it up, hoping that it would serve as a memory, perhaps the only memory, of those that had trodden here before her. As it would happen, she saw something strange- out of the corner of her eye she noticed a corpse blink at her.

'This one is alive!' she called out to the others, Ronon standing guard as Sheppard and McKay quickly gathered around, whilst Teyla rolled the man over. His clothes were torn and burnt, but he seemed largely fine- in fact, he struggled and tried to get up. One thing was obvious: he was very afraid.

'Please… please… don't hurt me! DON'T HURT ME!!'

The man was practically screaming at this point, so it came upon Sheppard to use his fearsome calming powers.

'Whoa whoa there, we're not the ones who did this, ok? We're here to help.'

'You're not Wraith?' the man asked, who was still looking frightened, but had stopped struggling.

'Do we look like Wraith?' McKay retorted.

'Look, I need you to tell us exactly what happened here. Shouldn't be too hard now, should it.' Sheppard asked, after checking to see if the man was hurt, which remarkably he wasn't. Unfortunately however, the man was not in the mood to talk and promptly turned his head away from the team. Seeing that Teyla was probably the only one who could resolve this, Sheppard and McKay stood up and joined Ronon in watching the perimeter.

'You may believe that I cannot understand the grief you are going through right now, but I assure you that you and I are more similar than you think.'

Teyla spoke softly, in order to comfort the man.

'How so?'

'My people have been subjected to the Wraith's cruelty for countless generations. I lost my parents and many friends at their hands, so you must understand that I am as anxious to fix this as you are.'

'Fix this?' the man seemed shocked at Teyla's words, and a little angry.

'What is there to fix? If you would care to look around then you'll see what's left of my life!'

'All the more reason for you to help us then.'

The man closes his eyes before sitting up. He looked at Teyla.

'Dozens of their ships came through the portal, several hours after the previous culling left. We thought that they were going to cull again, but instead they just started firing and firing. It wasn't culling, it was depopulation.'

'What of the other settlements on this planet?' Teyla asked, trying to gather as much useful information as possible from the man.

'I don't know. I saw many ships fly into the distance; I can only imagine that they were going after more villages.'

The man squatted next to Teyla for several more minutes, detailing the circumstances of the attack and the previous culling. He kept mentioning the names of a few people that were taken in the initial culling, almost as if they were the only ones that were. Initially Teyla dismissed this as personal grief on his part, but the less and less he referred to other victims, the more suspicious Teyla grew.

'Was that the first culling you have experienced?' was her next question. The man said that it was, for a few generations.

'How many people were taken?' Teyla asked. She had a slight feeling that the answer was not going to be too many.

'I'm not quite sure, er, maybe five or six… my cousin was one of them.'

'Excuse me.' said Teyla. She had some matters to discuss with the others.

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'It was no culling.'

Walking towards Sheppard and the gang, Teyla stated this as a fact.

'What makes you say that?' asked John, with Ronon and Rodney moving up on his sides to face Teyla.

'He said that only five or six of his people were taken during the first culling, and never in my life have I heard of so few being taken.'

McKay butted in.

'Huh, that is strange, I mean it makes no sense that they would go through the hassle of culling and then only take a handful of people.'

Sheppard in turn interrupted McKay.

'I think what Captain Obvious is trying to tell us is that if the Wraith didn't come here to feed, why did they come?'

'Maybe it was some kind of experiment.' said Ronon. 'Like they were taken by Michael or someone.'

'As far as I can remember Michael's _dead_.' replied Sheppard, looking a little concerned. He promptly turned to Rodney. 'He is dead, right?'

'Well we recovered his body. You were there.'

Sheppard felt a little silly, yet comforted. He still had his doubts- even though they had Michael's body, knowing how tenacious the little bastard was John wouldn't be too surprised if he had found a way of continuing his work. Before Sheppard could acknowledge his relief in the form of speech, McKay started up again.

' Wait wait wait- Ronon's got a point, I mean Michael must have had allies so it's entirely possible that someone's trying to continue his work, perhaps by taking people to be converted into hybrids or something.'

'_Trying to continue his work.' _The phrase "D'oh!" was going to repeat itself in Sheppard's mind for a while. He tried to get the discussion moving elsewhere.

'Alright, can anyone think of any other reasons, ones that preferably don't include Michael?'

'Well I for one can't think of any. I didn't pick up any EM readings, energy sources, advanced architecture, nothing. I guess the whole Michael thing is the most likely reason.'

No-one liked this worst-case scenario, but there was still no reason to assume that it was in fact Michael at all. Seeing little point in staying on the planet much longer, the team offered the native man refuge in Atlantis (which he accepted) before riding the jumper home.

Back at base, there was little the team could do regarding the situation on Ladonea. To Woolsey and the IOA, it was simply another destroyed civilisation which was beyond saving. Tomorrow was a new day in the recent relative stability of the galaxy, and even though the circumstances of the destruction and the possibility of Michaels' involvement (however indirect) were somewhat worrying, few people wanted to lose sleep over it.

After all, what could possibly go wrong?

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The next chapter will be the last in this part, but don't worry, part 2 is well into the planning stage. Again, reviews would be very very very much appreciated.


	8. Chapter 7 'Precipice'

Chapter 7

THE ROOM WAS warm. Shafts of red and yellow light permeated the entire space, the former thanks to the stained glass windows and the latter thanks to the bright New Lantean sun. Air bubbles in one of the gas exchange pillars floated upwards as they always did, refracting and reflecting the red light, causing small spots to shimmer and dance across the room.

On one side of the room, facing the door, was a large bed covered in white and beige sheets- chosen for their 'rustic appearance', apparently. Adjacent to the bed was a small wooden bedside-table complete with lamp, a copy of Catcher in the Rye and a silver, old-fashioned analogue alarm clock. The alarm had half a post-it note adhered to the back, the words 'Jennifer Keller' scribbled on in black biro. At 6:30 AM (an average start for the infirmary) the alarm sounded, prompting Keller to make a quiet moan before clumsily smacking the stop button. She lay face-down and above the covers, her bare feet dangling over the edge of the bed. These were soon swung over the bed to the side and made contact with the floor, the heated tiles sending a slight shiver up her spine as she made her way over to the sink. It was there that she heard the strangest of sounds:

'That's the most clothes I've seen you wear in a while,'

Jennifer's heart nearly skipped a beat and she almost dropped her towel. The expression of alarm on her face quickly turned to a blush as she spun round, seeing McKay sitting up in bed, wide-awake.

'You startled me. Although I think it has something to do with the fact that you usually aren't conscious for at least another three hours.'

'Yeah... I suppose this isn't my normal waking hour.' McKay replied, staring at the ceiling.

'You can certainly say that again,' murmured Keller, squirting out some toothpaste. She smiled. 'I am going to pretend that you just can't _bear _to spend a moment without me.'

'Plus, I get to see you half-naked in the light...' McKay was facing Jennifer now, most of his attention focused on her Agent Provocateur lingerie. In fact, so much of his attention was thus diverted that he nearly forgot the entire reason for his early rise. 'So I was thinking, maybe for once we could have breakfast together, you know, before you start the daily grind as opposed to when you've practically finished.' McKay had his signature cheeky smile in place.

'Dat woo bwee lovewy,' gargled Jennifer, mouth full of toothpaste. She promptly spat it out, rinsed and walked over to McKay, planting a big kiss on his mouth before giggling and saying, 'I mean, that would be lovely.'

Just before Rodney could reply she added,

'So long as you can get your big butt outta bed.'

As she made that little insult she shoved Rodney to the side with her arms and before she could retreat, McKay grabbed hold of her, entangling the two in an epic tickle fight.

There was a real reason for McKay's recent laziness, which Keller was all too wary of. The past month or so had been relatively peaceful, giving McKay much more time to sleep, and boy did that man like his sleep. Keller learned to deal with this by extracting promises from him to do little things for her, such as taking her to breakfast some mornings and dinner some evenings (which would usually end rather like last night).

McKay didn't mind at all- or rather he had learned not to mind. Over the past year he had learned that relationships are two-way streets and must be treated as such, the 'rocks and the gold', as Sheppard put it. This idea was a basic theory that the man must provide the woman with the rocks, be it gifts, nights out, time together or whatever. In return, the woman must provide the gold- the bedroom activities, so to speak.

McKay's previous ignorance to this fact nearly once nearly proved fatal to their relationship. Were it not for his ability to take the advice of others on at least a few levels, he would have been single months ago.

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'I've always preferred these.'

James Forrest was dressed in a blue tracksuit and trainers, clutching a wooden bō (a six-foot, two-handed fighting stick) and gently throwing it from hand to hand. His opponent was in loose-fitting beige trousers and vest and wielding two wooden Japanese shortswords. He moved quickly around the sparring mat, getting ready, twirling the swords around his wrists with elegant technique. Ronon.

'You ever sparred before?' Ronon asked, not taking his eyes off Forrest.

'Why do you ask?'

'Just wondering if I should go easy on you or not.'

Forrest stood up straight, striking the mat with his bō before holding it straight up, parallel to his body. 'If I told you I hadn't, would it make a difference?'

Ronon grinned, seeing that Forrest was hiding something.

'Probably not.'

'Then let's go.'

Ronon immediately charged forward, lunging with one arm and preparing to parry with the other, just as he had done a thousand times before. If Forrest was even remotely experienced in close combat, Ronon was ready- although what he soon faced nearly overwhelmed him. Forrest parried every blow, twisted and maneuvered his staff with machine-like precision and struck with strength that totally surpassed what his not-quite-Ronon muscle build would suggest.

The fight seemed almost choreographed and went on for what seemed like hours, neither of the two preparing to give any ground to the other. Every one of Ronon's swings sent a shock up his arm as every one smacked into the scratched, dented wood of Forrest's bō. The constant concentration and application of strength eventually started to take its toll; beads of sweat crested Ronon's eyebrows and began to trickle their way down his chin. He looked strained.

Forrest, however... didn't. He was sweating and breathing heavily, but maintained the same facial expression and composure as he had right from the word go. From this ordeal he could definitely admit that Ronon was a very competent fighter, a match for many other marines and agents that Forrest knew. Still, he was beginning to feel fatigued and decided to end this, quickly.

Taking a step back from Ronon's onslaught of attacks, Forrest turned away and leaned forwards, rotating his body to bring his right leg up and straight towards Ronon's head in a well-aimed roundhouse kick. Ronon promptly evaded this but failed to keep up with Forrest's bō, which immediately followed. One end of the bō struck Ronon in the thigh, whilst the other end came round and connected with his head, bringing the big Satedan crashing down on the mat. He managed to drop one of his swords before clutching his head. He was bleeding.

'You OK?' Forrest asked, dropping his own weapon. He was slightly out of breath but not nearly as much as he should have been.

'I'll be fine.' Ronon grunted as he heaved himself up. He didn't get his ass handed to him often when sparring, so needless to say he didn't look too happy about anything.

'That's gonna need stitches,' Forrest gestured at Ronon's still-bleeding forehead.

'Who are you, a doctor?' barked back Ronon, walking out of the door of the gym. Forrest followed, not hoping to console the man but rather to get to know Ronon better, to figure out why he was pissed.

'Well, my father's a surgeon _and _I got a lot of medical training when I was a marine.'

'That doesn't make you a doctor.' Ronon didn't even look at Forrest as he strode down the corridor.

'You're right, it doesn't, and I never said it did. But that still needs stitches.'

Ronon said nothing; he kept walking.

'If you want, I could take a look at it myself, perhaps-'

'Look. I don't want your charity or your sympathy, so why don't you just stop following me and let me go to the infirmary on my own.'

Ronon had stopped and had turned to look Forrest straight in the eye. There was suppressed anger in his voice, but this wouldn't deter Forrest. Not yet.

'You don't have my charity or my sympathy, I was simply-'

'Isn't there somewhere else you have to be right now?'

Once again Ronon cut Forrest short, leaving the latter momentarily lost for words. With the two warriors facing each other down, cutting the tension would require nothing short of an axe. Both felt like another fight was about to break out, but they were spared as the city's intercom started up:

'_James Forrest to test lab four, James Forrest report to test lab four asap, please.'_

'Apparently so.'

oo0000oooo0000ooo000oooo00000oooo000oo

Test Laboratory Four was, naturally, on the complete opposite side of the city. It took a good ten minutes for Forrest to get there, and when he did, he wasn't particularly impressed.

In short, the place was a mess- the tables were cluttered with old electronic components, power cables for the computer servers lay tangled across the floor and heavily stained whiteboards blocked the access to practically anything in the room. Forrest was sat on an office-style chair, staring at his arm-computer.

'Ok, if you could bring up the calibration screen again,' said Zelenka who, on a nearby workbench, was tapping away at his tablet PC.

'Just bring up the calibration screen one more time, please... uh, Forrest?'

The Czech rotated round on his stool, seeing the alien visitor gazing blankly down at his arm.

'Hey-'

Zelenka prodded Forrest for good measure.

'Oh, sorry. I'm just a little... just a little distracted.' Forrest was rather grey in his tone, making little hand signals around his head, almost as if he forgot what he was saying and had to make a sorry attempt at charades to get it across. Radek felt the need to say something.

'It's not your fault, you know.'

'I beg to differ.'

'You couldn't have possibly known what the Wraith would do. I'm sure anyone else here would've made the same call.'

'Really?'

Though English was not Zelenka's first language, he did know sarcasm when he saw it.

'Well no-one else here would have even had the option to do what you did, but if they did, then I'm sure they would have.'

Forrest lent back, putting his hands behind his head. He inhaled deeply and spoke as he exhaled.

'So they say.'

After a brief pause, Radek wheeled his stool round with a respectful 'Hmph' and got back to work. Forrest was far from finished.

'Someone once told me, "The first genocide is always the hardest."'

Radek looked puzzled, he couldn't imagine someone on the base saying something like that. Not exactly a comforting statement.

'Did someone in the city tell you that?'

Forrest's reply was a simple 'No.'

'... Then who?'

Forrest reclined even further, propping his legs up on the desk. His work on helping Zelenka decipher his combat gear had all but ceased.

'A scientist, actually. One of the greatest minds the galaxy had ever seen, his work on nanotechnology in some places outstripped even that of the Ancients. Without him, our medicine, communications, weaponry- they'd be vastly inferior. I sure as hell wouldn't be here.'

Radek listened intently to every word. He considered himself lucky that this stranger would indulge even a little information about his own world. To Zelenka, it sounded like a better world.

'Wow. He sounds like a great man.'

'He was evil.'

Now Forrest really had Radek's attention.

'A terrorist, of the worst kind. He figured his intellect was his best weapon, so he put it too good use. It took a lot of sacrifice to bring him down. Perhaps too much.'

Zelenka's mind was on fire with questions. He was so intrigued that he could only muster a meek 'What happened?' as a response.

'It was an op gone bad, but I won't bore you with the details,

'_Oh, please do...'_

...and said the genocide thing right before he died.'

Throughout this nostalgia, Forrest narrated the story in just the same voice as he had done the whole time he was in the lab. He still reclined on his chair. Radek, though, needed some answers.

'He wasn't talking about you, presumably.'

'At the time I thought just that. I realized a few hours later, that he wasn't talking about himself but something that I'd done. Or rather, something I'd do.'

'What did you do?'

This Zelenka fellow got straight to the point. Forrest paused before answering; he looked a little frustrated. Radek could see that he had some trouble with this topic.

'I initiated the deployment of the first ever vacuum bomb. Annihilated the whole system, and everyone in it. Worst part is, I made the call, not the generals or admirals.'

'My god.' Radek was lost for words, save for those few. He wondered what other secrets Forrest held about his past, his life and his time.

Forrest then got up out of his chair and walked towards the lab door. He turned to Radek before he left.

'That was almost exactly ten years ago. I don't believe in fate, but some things do make you think.'

'What, were you fighting terrorists when you were twelve?' said Radek, dismissively. Forrest smiled

'I'm not as young as I look.'

A second later he was gone, leaving Radek to ponder the story. There was certainly a lot to this man.

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_Space is vast. Millions upon millions of miles of emptiness, void and darkness, sometimes where not even subatomic particles can exist. It so happens, however, that God decided to provide a respite from the deadness and thus came about matter. Hard, physical matter, the stuff from which stars, planets, trees and men are made of._

_In a distant corner of the galaxy, far away from any noticeable celestial bodies was a small star, burning its way through its younger years. It's children, or rather brothers (having been born from a previous star) numbered only four- four planets, engaged in an aeon-long cosmic dance. This year, one of countless thousands, proved to be one of the more profound one in the systems history. It was the first time organic life had visited, choosing one barren, dusty planet to conduct whatever it is that organics do. _

_There were four organics on the surface of the planet, shielded from the harsh atmosphere by capsules of alien design. Arranged around the capsule were strange devices implanted into the ground; some spaced close together, others were many miles apart. Over time the capsules began to grow. Thick, purple tendrils flowed out in all directions, burrowing into the ground and engulfing and leaching off the energy of the implanted machines. The more the machines were enveloped by the purple tide of matter, the faster it grew and the larger it became. It would be months and weeks until the structure was ready, at which point it's size and splendor distinguished it from any other landmark, much to the delight of the aliens. They called them Hives._

_Two of these hives orbited the planet, their curved hull stretching on for miles. They were difficult to see in the dead of space, though; their hulls reflected the sun's rays poorly. Deep within one of these behemoths, a female alien paces quickly through the halls. She is distressed, angry. Upon reaching a moderate sized room, she barks commands at her minions who are busying themselves monitoring some control panels. She places her hands into a pedestal, and is immediately rewarded with control of the whole ship. Every system, piece of knowledge and technology is at her disposal. She feels the engine cores spinning, the sensor circuits pulsating and the life-force of the thousands of on-board crew. It is a powerful sensation, and she has one particular system in mind._

_She orders her men to lock the ship's sensors onto the other hive. As this is done (and she can always tell) she wills vast amounts of energy towards the ventral weapon batteries. She senses the other hive doing the same and knows that whomever shoots first will win. Without hesitation the weapons discharge, propelling powerful pulses of energy across the stern of the enemy ship. All hit their mark, incinerating the hull of the enemy vessel and creating large explosions that catapult fragments of burning organic debris into the dead space between the ships. _

_The enemy hive fires up their engines and slowly accelerates away from the attacking ship, firing wildly. The queen feels every impact on her hull, but relentlessly pursues her prey and the two ships soon find themselves in a long event that will lead to the destruction of both parties._

_She knows this and has a plan. A thousand miles away, the vacuum that has remained for many years is disturbed. The very fabric of reality itself begins to fade away as three more hive ships emerge from the resulting hyperspace window, lining up to start their assault. The escaping hive soon finds itself hopelessly outnumbered and makes the decision to flee, its battered hull on the point of failing. The queen sees this and smiles- her coup is now almost complete- but her satisfaction is cut short. The enemy hive ceases fire and accelerates faster, narrowly evading a stream of weapons fire that would have put it down for good and makes the jump to hyperspace._

_The queen is furious, snarling and hitting the pedestal. She comes to her senses quickly however, realizing that her coup is all but complete save for the lone hive of the former leader. No doubt he will inform the humans about this, as he has done for years now. No doubt the humans will find a way to undermine her superiority, as they have been allowed to do so for far too many years._

_It is time to end this pathetic charade._


End file.
